Don’t think of these as also-rans; a case could be made for bumping any of these titles up to top-10 status. They are listed in alphabetical order. Dishes mentioned can be found online at washingtonpost.com/recipes.

“Big Vegan: More Than 350 Recipes, No Meat/No Dairy, All Delicious,” by Robin Asbell (Chronicle, $29.95). This paperback has the counter appeal and substance of a hardcover book. The chef-author’s emphasis is on balancing sweet, salty, bitter, sour and umami.

“Eleven Madison Park: The Cookbook,” by Daniel Humm and Will Guidara (Little, Brown, $50). Stunning. Chances of re-creating a complex dish so that it looks like what’s in the accompanying photograph seem slim, at least for mere mortals.

“The Food of Spain,” by Claudia Roden (Ecco, $39.99). The book is big, but the recipes are not complex, affording opportunities to work them into a weeknight rotation.

“Momofuku Milk Bar,” by Christina Tosi (Clarkson Potter, $35). It’s almost not fair; the pastry chef of Momofuku in New York has an unerring sweet tooth, and her prose is entertaining enough for bedtime reading.

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Comments our editors find particularly useful or relevant are displayed in Top Comments, as are comments by users with these badges: . Replies to those posts appear here, as well as posts by staff writers.